Worth Knowing, Probably Not Quite Threadworthy 2/24

[SVPete]

ICE Training Myths Collapse Under DHS Facts

ICE Training Myths Collapse Under DHS Facts

For months, we've heard endlessly from talking heads on dinosaur media and Democrats that ICE agents are woefully undertrained, rushing through streets using lower standards, creating chaos. They predicted constitutional abuses.

A press release by the Department of Homeland Security states that the idea is, well, bunk.

The Department of Homeland Security released hard numbers and direct statements clarifying the structure of ICE law enforcement training.

During the last administration, new recruits didn't spend much time at the academy. Not anymore.

The agency explained that ICE recruits receive 56 days of training and an average of 28 days of on-the-job training. Under the prior administration, agents trained eight hours a day, five days a week. Under President Donald Trump, new hires are being trained 12 hours a day, six days a week.

“No training requirements have been removed,” DHS stated, adding that it is the “same hours of training officers have always received.”

To further enhance the training schedule, DHS removed redundant modules and incorporated updated tools along with scenario-based exercises. The curriculum includes firearms proficiency, de-escalation tactics, and comprehensive instruction on the Fourth and Fifth Amendments.

The left has claimed the training had shrunk to 42 days and that Spanish-language instruction disappeared, preventing communication.

Both claims immediately collapsed.

Language classes, which previously covered only a specific dialect of Spanish, have been replaced with robust translation and interpretation services that apply to multiple languages. The majority of new officers brought on during the hiring surge are experienced law enforcement officers who have already successfully completed a law enforcement academy.

Among other narrative-lies, ICE-Haters have been claiming ICE officers are untrained.

[SVPete]

NYT: Who's Bright Idea Was It to Release the Epstein Files, Anyway? UPDATE: NYT Disclosure Fail

https://hotair.com/ed-morrissey/2026/02/24/nyt-whos-bright-idea-was-it-to-release-the-epstein-files-anyway-n3812221

Perhaps we can use a milder analogy for this featured op-ed at the New York Times today: buyer's remorse. Democrats and the Protection Racket Media hyped up the Epstein Files, promoted the victims demanding full disclosure except when it came to their own information, and kept insinuating that Donald Trump was hiding the Information That Would Finally Stop Him. Instead, progressive elites in Academia, Hollywood, Wall Street, and even the royal family and the UK government have seen their lives torpedoed.

Having bought and used the Epstein Monkey's Paw, Democrats and the progressive elite are deep in regret. Former federal prosecutor Daniel Richman wags his finger at all of them from the pages of the NYT, and a few Republicans too, for violating investigative norms that exist for good reason – as we are all discovering now (via Instapundit's Stephen Green).

Richman starts off by blaming the Trump administration and DoJ for a lack of trust among the public, a point to which we'll return shortly. He finally gets to the meat of the issue about halfway through:

The tools we give the government are justified not only by the importance of the criminal enforcement mission but by the care and professional judgment prosecutors and agents are required to exercise with the information they obtain with those tools. ... Still, prosecutors’ use of the materials they collect is ordinarily bounded by their mission — to charge individuals (or not to charge them), to satisfy disclosure obligations after a case is brought and, if possible, to convince a jury or to obtain a guilty plea.
...
We have to reckon with what happens when a huge investigative haul — with its swirling mix of gossip, casual association and possible criminal misconduct — is opened up for public viewing. The justice system should never be the only means of holding people accountable. The power of shame can be a good thing, and some reputations deserve to be tarnished. But informal accountability processes can easily slide into misuse of unfiltered source material.

If an ordinary schlub of ordinary intelligence like me could foresee that unselectively releasing raw data from an investgation would entail the risk of harming numerous innocent people, the Trump-Haters knew this as well and knowingly hypo-vehiculated hundreds of innecent people in the hope that somwhere under the tons of equine feces was a Gotcha-Trump pony.

[Ralph Wiggum]

NYT: Who's Bright Idea Was It to Release the Epstein Files, Anyway? UPDATE: NYT Disclosure Fail

https://hotair.com/ed-morrissey/2026/02/24/nyt-whos-bright-idea-was-it-to-release-the-epstein-files-anyway-n3812221


If an ordinary schlub of ordinary intelligence like me could foresee that unselectively releasing raw data from an investgation would entail the risk of harming numerous innocent people, the Trump-Haters knew this as well and knowingly hypo-vehiculated hundreds of innecent people in the hope that somwhere under the tons of equine feces was a Gotcha-Trump pony.

I've been racking my brain (not often, though) wondering what the end game is with the Epstein files. Clearly Epstein was a DEMOCRAT scumbag who did hob-nob with the rich and powerful, of which then citizen Trump was. Everyone knows that 95+% of the names in his files was a Democrat. But there are I guess some weird insinuations that Trump is involved with all sorts of shenanigans. One supposes they also believe the "pee tape" was real.

I just don't get it, and quite frankly it is far beneath my pay grade to ponder.

[enslaved1]

Robert Carradine, ‘Revenge of the Nerds’ and ‘Lizzie McGuire’ star, dies at 71

Robert Carradine, the youngest of his prolific Hollywood family and whose biggest hit was the 1984 comedy “Revenge of the Nerds,” has died at 71.

In a Tuesday statement, his family said he lived with bipolar disorder for two decades. His brother told Deadline that Carradine died by suicide.

“We want people to know it, and there is no shame in it,” Keith Carradine told Deadline. “It is an illness that got the best of him, and I want to celebrate him for his struggle with it, and celebrate his beautiful soul. He was profoundly gifted, and we will miss him every day.”

That sucks, even before finding the cause of death. 

[SVPete]

Very sad news, for his family, friends, and fans!

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‘Star Trek: Starfleet Academy’ Is a Ratings Disaster Amid ‘First Ever Gay Klingon’ in a Dress, Teases Queer Love Triangle Plot

https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2026/02/23/star-trek-starfleet-academy-is-a-ratings-disaster-amid-first-ever-gay-klingon-in-a-dress-teases-queer-love-triangle-plot/

Paramout+’s struggling new Star Trek series, Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, has been unable to crack the top ten shows in the Nielsen Ratings as the eight-figure per episode series wallows in a constant stream of left-wing, identity politics like gay Klingons, bisexuals, lesbians, and girl boss characters irks fans the world over.

The most recent plot rankling longtime fans of the franchise is the full-fledged gay Klingon character named “Ja-Den.”

Ja-Den, portrayed by gay actor Karim Diane, breaks the Star Trek mold for the 60-year-old franchise’s war-like, aggressive Klingon alien race. Instead of being a warrior, Ja-Den is a vegan and a bird watcher who had two dads. And when he gets to the academy, he immediately begins dating a young human male he meets there. But, wait, there’s more. Ja-Den also has secret feelings for one of the other male students in the series.

What Hollyweird genius thinks Star Trek fans love having preachy Prog social views rammed down their throats.

[SVPete]

Social media erupts after Stephen King makes false claim about Trump's family: 'What is this sh--?'

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/social-media-erupts-after-stephen-king-makes-claim-trumps-family

Horror author Stephen King is facing backlash online Monday for a post tearing into President Donald Trump’s personal life, including a line claiming that Trump has no children.

"Trump: has never had a child. Has been married 3 times. Ran several businesses into the ground. Never ran a home, couldn’t make a bed to save his a--. Calls people he works with dumb, losers, ect. Has never done sweat labor. Has never served on a local committee," King said in a post to X.

"[He] has no life experience," King added.
...
"Well, this is news to me… unless he means birthed a child which would also hold true for every male ever. TDS is real and it’s scary," Trump Jr. posted on X.

"Trump literally has 5 kids. What is this sh--?" Libs of TikTok posted on X.

WRT Trump's marriages, while King has, apparently, been married once (with no divorce), in the context of the Hollyweirders he works with, King is the one who is unusual.

A couple of Trump's businesses did go bankrupt. OTOH, others of Trump's businesses have been very successful. King doesn't want people to realize that. Similarly, King also ignored the fact that Trump has very publicly called out people who work for him for their excellent work.

[enslaved1]

User accidentally gains control of over 6,700 robot vacuums while tinkering with their own device to enable control with a PlayStation controller — security flaw reveals floor plans and live video feeds

A security flaw that exposed thousands of DJI Romo robot vacuums to unauthorized access has been unintentionally revealed after a tinkerer built an app to control their own device with a PlayStation controller. According to The Verge, this problem allowed the app to retrieve accurate floor plans, access live camera and microphone feeds, and even let it remotely control the affected devices.

This was accidentally discovered by AI strategist Sammy Adoufal, who used Claude Code to reverse engineer the protocol used by the DJI Romo to communicate with its servers. But instead of just letting him access his own device, it instead handed over the keys to around 6,700 robot vacuums located across the world. Azdoufal said that he didn’t hack into DJI systems — all that he did was to get the private token of his own Romo vacuum. “I didn’t infringe any rules, I didn’t bypass, I didn’t crack, brute force, whatever,” he said to The Verge. Because of this, he was able to access live servers across the world, including the U.S., Europe, and even China.

Another reminder that not everything needs to connect to the freaking internet, if anyone really needs more of those. 

[SVPete]

Somewhere in this there is a Candid Camera segment or episode.

Once upon a time the factory-set password for IBM mainframes was "Hello" and some system admins did not change it. It sounds like this is something similar, except that robot vacuum owners don't know to or even can't change the tokens for their vacuums.

[SVPete]

Our Men’s Hockey Team’s Historic Win Was Just Too Much for Sports Writers to Bear

https://archive.is/lJxKy#selection-493.0-493.81

The conventional wisdom within our illustrious sports media this morning seems to be that Eileen Gu, who skis for China, is an estimable American role model, whereas the USA men’s hockey team, which plays hockey for America, is an international disgrace.

Permit me, if you will, to offer a humble counterargument: In my estimation, Eileen Gu is a mercenary sports traitor who ought to be muttered about darkly, whereas the USA men’s hockey team is chock full of awesome, fun-loving, patriotic champions who deserve every last drop of their newfound national esteem.

The charge against the men’s team seems to be four-fold. First, that, having won the gold, its members declined to address the “tide of fascism in the United States” and instead said gauche hyper-nationalistic things, such as, “This is all about our country right now,” “I love the USA,” ... Second, that during a post-game phone call with a rollicking President Trump, the players didn’t band together on the spot to push back against his supposedly sexist jokes — or apologize later for their complicity. Third, that the team subsequently agreed to go to the White House to celebrate their victory — and, even worse, that it seems excited by that prospect. Fourth, that the FBI director, Kash Patel, went over to Italy to watch the game and then chugged beer with the team in the locker room. Together, the sporting press is keen to inform us, these decisions have “sullied” the USA’s victory and ruined the reputations of its architects for all time.

More briefly, Prog-Faithful media folk are POed the US hockey team didn't tell Trump to F off.